Consumers develop preferences for particular types of food based on appearance and texture. Once they grow accustomed to glossy appearances and textures in, for example, sauce-coated fried or baked chicken, they come to expect and demand that these characteristics be present in all sauce-coated fried or baked chicken.
Such glossy appearances and textures have typically been provided in the prior art by the application of liquid-based glazes. The use of such glazes is labor intensive, since the glazes must be carefully applied to avoid waste and mess from dripping and splattering both during initial application and when the coated substrate is heated to set the glaze. Additionally, such glazes contain water which means that users must pay for shipping water, an uneconomical practice which is avoided whenever possible in the low margin food industry.
Therefore, it would be highly desireable to provide a new way of producing long-lasting glossy coatings on fried and baked foods which are easy to apply and free of water, and which can deliver a wide range of different flavors along with the desired appearance and textural characteristics.